“Small” states historically have been central to upholding and legitimizing the liberal international order – often in the face of opposition of the world’s great powers. But they also reveal a longstanding paradox in this international order – no state engaged this order can be defined as wholly “liberal.”
Interrogating Terms
In our current moment – and with the benefit of history – it is worth considering what we mean by “small liberal states.” How do we understand “small,” and how do we understand “liberal”? We often understand smallness in terms of economic capacity or political clout, but these issues often are in tension with other realities. For example, Pakistan’s political and economic clout often have been limited, both regionally and internationally, while domestically, instability has been rife. But it is also the fifth-largest country in the world by population and possesses a nuclear arsenal. So is Pakistan small? Or to take another example, Namibia is a territorially small, sparsely populated country that only attained independence in 1990 and has continuing high levels of poverty. But it also is a critical site of rare earth minerals, required for electric vehicles and other technologies; as a consequence, it has grown increasingly important in global
supply chains, despite its size, which gives it a source of power in the international system. There is not an obvious, single metric for state smallness, and a state’s power and influence can depend on the issues at stake and the geographical region at hand.
Likewise, many formerly colonized states are neither fully liberal nor illiberal. Breaking liberalism down in terms of economic and political practices, we see many instances historically of non-democratic countries embracing free-market economies (many states in twentieth-century Latin America led by US-backed authoritarian elites), as well as democracies practicing forms of economic protectionism as they sought self-sufficiency. This was the case in India for much of the twentieth century.
An additional reality to account for is that what constituted a small liberal state in the early to mid-twentieth century – when the liberal international order was, in many ways, crystallized – is not necessarily the same today. Across much of the “Global South,” in particular, a number of different economic and political practices have been attempted that blur the lines between classic (Western) liberalism and illiberalism. This, in turn, has informed calls by historians and IR scholars to explore the non-Western roots of political thought and practice, regional organization, and international relations. But it also requires us to think about change over time: gauging when (and where, why, and to what end) a “small” state has appeared engaged with the international order and the politics and economics driving this engagement.
To give just one example in our current moment that shows the ambiguities of smallness and liberalism, we can think of Vietnam: a colony in the mid-twentieth century that became independent in the 1970s. It is now a communist state under one-party rule that nevertheless has become increasingly engaged in free-market economics as a partner of the United States. It thus is at-once politically illiberal and economically, increasingly liberal. Vietnam is also one of the states most threatened by Trump’s proposed tariffs (up to 46%), in part because of its relations with China. The scale of the threatened tariffs seems at odds with Vietnam’s ostensible “smallness” – so how do we reconcile this? What does this say about Vietnam’s power (perceived or actual)? To what extent is Vietnam merely collateral due to its location and historical political alliances, versus to what extent has Vietnam been a key actor in creating this scenario through its economic and political planning?
So what does “remaining liberal” in the current world order mean? Is this a matter of domestic politics, global economics, or mutual recognition of a set of international norms? In other words, is this about a world of democracies where civil liberties are recognized? A world of interlinked free trade? A world in which states mutually recognize territorial sovereignty? Likewise, is it an all-or-nothing question that requires persistent domestic and international governing models? Exploring these issues requires interrogating these terms and recognizing non-Western roots of internationalism, but it also requires attention to change over time and seemingly irreconcilable tensions within the international system – a system that small states, despite their ostensible smallness, have nevertheless influenced.
Historical context
Given the changes of the past century, “liberal international order” does not adequately capture the complexity of domestic and international politics, nor does it account for ideas and practices emanating out of regions other than the North Atlantic, as both historians and IR scholars have made clear.
For many small states, the liberal international order often has been more an idea than a reality. First, international bodies like the United Nations were developed and implemented by Western imperial leaders. On one hand, they were intended to maintain a rules-based order; on the other, their imperial founders saw such institutions as a means to retain their own influence in international affairs. These structures thus have inbuilt biases against non-Western societies, as demonstrated, for example, by the UNHCR’s refusal to recognize East or South Asians as refugees in the mid-twentieth century and the early staffing of the UN and its associated bodies by former colonial officials. Second, the presence of a liberal international order has not prevented stronger powers from invading weaker ones. The Cold War, as it played out across much of the “Third World,” demonstrated that great powers readily pushed the boundaries of international law, and ignored smaller states’ sovereignty, to fulfill their own aims. Against this backdrop, small states have historically adopted three approaches. One is to participate in alliance-making with larger powers (the bloc-alliance systems of the Cold War). Another is to seek alternative, potentially complementary, arenas for international affairs. These have included regional alliances (the OAU, ASEAN) and alternative organizational forums (Afro-Asian cooperation, tricontinentalism, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation). The third has been to use multilateral institutions to press forward on shared interests (the NIEO and formation of the G77).
Against the backdrop of the Cold War and twenty-first century politics, small states, in many respects, have engaged more faithfully with multilateral institutions than large states. In the twentieth century, recently decolonized states effectively used their seats in the UN General Assembly to raise pressing political and economic issues, whether the Algerian war of independence, South Africa’s apartheid system, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was due to the mobilization of 43 newly independent African and Asian states that political selfdetermination became an enshrined right (UN Resolution 1514). More recently, smaller states have led many of the discussions about the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the inequities of global migration, and the global climate emergency.
Alongside this, small states have made use of the International Court of Justice to reaffirm key tenets of the liberal international order or to refine its meanings. Thus, for example, Cambodia and Thailand’s leaders sought to litigate their mutual (French colonially drawn) border in 1962, while South Africa brought the question of Israel’s contravention of the Geneva Convention to the ICJ in 2023.
With such examples in mind, it becomes evident that great power disregard has been the greater limiting factor within the liberal international order. The veto power of (great power) members of the UN Security Council has often been in tension with small-state interests, the US has refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ since 1986, and as we have seen, larger states are still willing to invade less powerful ones.
Current realities
There are several issues that impact small and large states alike in engaging with international politics.
The first is the question of legitimacy. The organizations that underpin the liberal international order are under fire from a number of different directions. One question that has arisen on more than one occasion is the continued utility of the UN Security Council, and particularly the veto power of the five permanent members, all of which were great powers in the nineteenth and/or twentieth centuries. Looking at UNGA resolutions in comparison to Security Council voting reveals a disconnect: to take just one example, the UNGA voted overwhelmingly (124 for, 14 against, 43 abstentions) in September 2024 for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza; the United States, meanwhile, vetoed a Security Council resolution two months later demanding the extension of humanitarian aid into Gaza, a resolution that was proposed by the 10 elected (smaller) member-states. Likewise, the refusal of both the United States and Russia to accept or abide by ICJ rulings weakens not only this institution but undermines the very idea of an international order based on the rule of law. In other words, for some sort of (liberal international) world order to persist, all states must mutually recognize the legitimacy of IGOs and international law and agree to parity within them as sovereign states – or an alternative order must be founded.
The second is that small states and non-state actors can have outsized influence on international affairs. In other words, they can be the causes of change in the international order, not just the collateral of great-power decision-making. This has been evident most recently with Hamas’s attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, a series of events that have reverberated domestically, regionally, and globally. The same held true for al-Qaeda’s attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent “War on Terror.” Afghanistan often has been described as not only a small, but a failed, state, yet it has fundamentally shaped international politics for the past 45 years. It helped bring the end of the Soviet Union, it embroiled the United States and NATO in another twenty-year intervention, it reshaped domestic politics in small and large states alike, and it demonstrated the limitations of a UN-brokered peace agreement (which did not include non-state actors). Small states and state claimants (such as Hamas) are not necessarily hampered by their size in how they can force new conversations and changes in international politics. This is a reality that needs consideration in any discussion of the future of the liberal international order: how can it account for small-state agency? Not only that, but how can a global order move beyond the reactive to be more preemptive in averting conflict? Is this even possible?
Third is the impact of globalization and reactions against it. This has played out over the past century particularly in terms of economics and migration. Trump’s proposed tariffs are only the most recent example of state policies coming up against the realities of an economic system that has – for centuries – relied on the movement of raw materials and developed goods across the world. Going back to the dilemmas of “smallness,” states that have access to important resources and technologies are not powerless in the international system. Not only that, but migration, both licit and illicit, is an issue that is unlikely to go away. Where does freedom of movement fit in an international order whose current member-states are more hostile than ever to immigration (both legal and illegal)? Likewise, how do we account for a world where climate emergencies are predicted to force even more movement as various environments become increasingly inhospitable?
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, is that “liberalism” increasingly seems more fiction than fact. Is there any state we can define as being fully “liberal”? If not, then what does that mean for a “liberal international order”? In both practice and rhetoric, the international order consists of states whose political and economic lineages are multifaceted. Perhaps the issue today is that the shorthand, “liberal international order,” no longer serves to paint over this complexity and the ways it informs relations between states, not just within them.
Future directions
Many “small” states continue to engage with international organizations, and lobby for change. In other words, global governance – and a sense that an international order comprised of states exists – are unlikely to go away. But this raises several questions:
- If this future international order is not “liberal,” then what is it? In this regard, it is not enough to interrogate the etymologies of international relations (i.e. to acknowledge non-Western alternatives). Instead, eschewing North-South, East-West binaries, how can we describe trends and ideas informing different states’ approaches to the international – and thus the international, itself? In other words, can we respond to critiques of IR’s inherent Western centrism by taking seriously ideas and practices emanating out from many states and thus develop a new lexicon to describe international order?
- What are the main sources of power looking to the future? And what are main sources of weakness? In other words, how might evolving politics, economics, cultures, and environments reshape how we conceptualize smallness?
- Where do regional arenas fit in, and is there scope for these to overtake the international arena? Or how might they sit alongside and/or complement the international? How might they come into conflict? In other words, how do we reconcile – and account for – change across multiple scales (domestic, regional, global)?